Chapter 6. Writing Documents for Classes

Chapter 6 Introduction

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

- Mark Twain

At some point during college, you will probably be enrolled in a writing-intensive course (also called w-courses or writing-across-the-curriculum courses). In a nutshell, the aim of these courses is to help you learn about a subject by researching and writing about it, and in some courses you actually produce the kinds of documents that are common to your discipline beyond graduation, thus helping you to get ready for the workplace. Some writing-intensive courses require a series of short assignments culminating in a longer report, while others require both oral and written presentation and are akin to a senior thesis. Many w-courses also involve substantial e-mail correspondence between you and a professor or you and other members of a project team, and they may require oral presentation or an online portfolio. In any case, all writing-intensive courses provide you with ample opportunity to receive concrete feedback on your writing from your professor.

All that said, it must be noted that, from both the professor’s and student’s point of view, writing-intensive courses often mean extra work and higher standards. Yet many professors are happy to teach them, because it becomes clear from the course’s very definition that good communication skills are key to good performance. While you may groan at the prospect of both the workload and standards of a writing-intensive course, they do serve to underscore the fact that writing will matter greatly in any profession you choose.

Simply put, this chapter is designed to help you survive writing-intensive courses. Individual sections in this chapter are devoted to the types of forms you will probably be using in any course involving technical writing, whether it is designated as writing-intensive or not. By reviewing the stylistic tips and the models herein, and following any advice your professor gives to the letter, you should be able not just to breathe a little easier in any writing-intensive course that you take, but to thrive.

Self-Study

For those who wish to polish their skills, some good (and free) extensive writing advice awaits you in cyberspace, courtesy of university professors. Here are two such sites:

Outlines

Most students see outlines as a royal pain. But not only are they often central to writing-intensive courses, they are frequently required on the job; for example, a project manager may require each individual team member to outline and compose different portions of a joint report. Do not be seduced by the belief that an outline is totally useless or simply mechanical; this will only be true if you make it so.

Self-Study

Plenty of tips on writing outlines are available on the web on university webpages. Here are two recommended sites:

The Value of Outlining

make decisions about organization and content without the distraction of all the details of composition.

avoid repetition, digression, poor emphasis, and poor flow.

improve general organizational skills.

Considered in the light of the above ideal, outlines can be as fundamental to the writer as a flowchart is to the computer programmer. Good writers use outlines to flesh out their ideas, organize their thoughts, and discover their gaps.

Outlines can be writer-centered, of course, to aid you in expressing your ideas, but the material presented here assumes a reader-centered outline—i.e., one written for the eyes of a professor who will use the outline to provide you with some written feedback. As long as the mechanics of the outline are correct and the details concrete, most professors will not be too finicky about the quality of your outlining skills, and will simply take the opportunity to give you quick feedback on your ideas and organization.

Style for Outlines

When drafting an outline, keep the following stylistic tips in mind:

Compose a thorough working title for your paper, with the title offering a window into the paper’s purpose and content.

Double-space your type to allow room for comments.

Present headings as scientific categories and assertions rather than as informal speculations (i.e., "How Manganese Oxides Trap Heavy Metals" rather than "Just How Do Manganese Oxides Trap Heavy Metals?").

When writing an outline for a class, even if you are unsure of what material to provide under each heading, include a draft of each major heading to demonstrate your overall plan and to encourage professor feedback.

Mechanics of Outlining

The mechanics of outlining are simple when stripped down to their essential elements. The two most common forms used are the Arabic System and the Decimal System. Indentations of a tab (1/2-inch or five spaces) are used to designate hierarchy of material, and order is indicated by sequential numbers, letters, or Roman numerals. Headings at the left margin are typically referred to as first-level headings, those indented one tab as second-level headings, and so on. The Decimal System requires a period between numbers, and note that, for both systems, the rising sequence of the numbers, letters, or Roman numerals is determined by the level of the heading under which a character falls.

Sample Outline

The sample outline that follows comes from the field of geology, and its first-level headings reflect a common approach writers take when organizing their original research into a senior thesis. As often happens, the writer’s first-level headings are somewhat generic, while the second- and third-level headings are more specialized to the subject matter of the essay. Note also the specificity of the title, of each section heading, and the relationships of the headings to each other. Such a detailed and professional outline helps the writer to keep organized during the writing process as well as gives the advisor an opportunity to give concrete feedback.

Proposals

In the working world, you will often be in the position of writing a proposal, usually to try to solve a problem or receive approval or funding for a project. Such proposals must be prepared to exact specifications and must strike an artful balance between your own needs and those of your audience. Recently, I worked closely with a professor as she prepared a proposal for some vital funding for her research, and her revisions during our discussion were effective because they were completely audience-centered and goal-oriented, even to the point that she revised tentative-sounding phrases into positive affirmations, shortened paragraphs and provided more transitions so that her sentences were easier to read and reread, and changed certain past-tense verbs to present tense to establish a stronger sense of immediate relevance.

In your courses, your professor may simply ask you to write a short topic proposal for his or her approval, or you may be asked to write an extensive proposal as a warm-up for a term paper or lengthy writing project. The advice that follows will help you prepare an extensive proposal.

Self-Study

For more ideas on writing research paper proposals, try out these URLs:

Pitfalls of Proposals

When you are faced with the task of preparing a proposal for a paper, consider your audience’s position first. Believe me, when a professor asks you to write a proposal, what he or she wants to do is read and understand it rapidly, give some feedback, and then grant speedy approval to someone who is clearly prepared to begin writing a paper. Empty phrases, vague detail, apparent self-absorption, cockiness, or a lack of confidence on your part just get in the way of all that. I once reviewed a batch of paper proposals in which the following sentences appeared verbatim:

Another aspect in which I will ultimately show there is some importance here is . . .

Currently I am working hard at gathering more information and reviewing all my present information, maps, and resources that I have etc., etc., etc.

At this point in time my proposed topic that I have chosen is . . .

By the deadline of this paper I will have expected myself to have gone far more into depth about this interesting topic and would have all of the required information.

In the nearly 90 words above, there is nothing of use to the reader of the proposal, who wants specifics, not fluff. Empty phrases merely waste the reader’s time and even breed suspicion that the writer has no real specifics to report. If you complicate what should be simple with such bloated, undigestible, and unswallowable phrases, your poor professor only winds up with a headache and heartburn.

Style for Proposals

As you compose your proposal, follow these stylistic tips:

Try out a title, seeing it as a window into your introduction.

Include an immediately relevant introduction that briefly and professionally sets the context. Do not bother with such silliness as "Hi!!! Happy to be in your class. My name is Joseph. My social security number is . . . ."

Have a premise, objective, or rationale clearly stated. Label it as such.

Take advantage of enumeration or formatting so that your important points stand out. Consider some sort of outline form where appropriate, even if only for one section of the proposal. Make it easy to scan.

Do not waste any time at all. No verbal drumrolls.

In general, do not hesitate to use "I," but do not overuse it. Sound like a person, even if it means taking a tiny stab at something that feels creative or bold. You may strike just the right humanizing chord and be invited to do so in your paper as well.

Pose questions. Actively speculate. Be thinking on the page.

Remember that a proposal is not an unbreakable covenant, but a thoughtful plan. Be specific about the work that you have not yet done as well as the work that you have. For example: "I am still speculating about how best to define the general characteristics of particle systems, and I know that I need to find more information on particle interactions, mechanics, and processing." Such a comment might inspire a helpful professor to jot you a concrete note about where to find the needed information.

Cite sources in your proposal, using the same citation style that you will use in the paper. You may be expected to give an annotated bibliography, but even if not, consider giving a sentence or so of description about your sources to establish your credibility, show the relevance of your initial research, and begin to spark the thoughts that the sources will help you to generate.

Proofread the proposal with care, just as you should the final product.

Sample Proposal

What follows is a short proposal for a paper on the rapid growth of convenience store chains in America. Note how admirably the proposal takes advantage of the stylistic tips noted in the list on the previous page. Also note that because the proposal author took the initiative to go to a convenience store chain’s business office, she found out that the chain had an historian, who provided her with abundant and excellent data, such as that generated by exit polls, to supplement her library research. This proposal was submitted by an earth science student and received enthusiastic approval and concrete feedback from the professor.

Sample Proposal

"The Burgeoning of Convenience Stores Across the American Landscape"
by Janet Lerner

INTRODUCTION
In a little over two decades we have witnessed the emergence of a new concept in retail buying for the American consumer—the convenience store. The United States government defines convenience stores as "food retailer(s) of limited lines in a freestanding sales area of 3,000 square feet, concentrating on selected fast-moving products" (Directory of Supermarkets, Grocery, and Convenience Store Chains, 1990). To this definition I would add that typically the products on the shelves of convenience stores are priced higher than those carried by their competitors.

RATIONALE FOR MY INVESTIGATION
While spreading across the country like politicians on a campaign trail, convenience stores appear to have maintained a fairly distinctive regional character. Uni-Mart and Sheetz are common names for these stores in central Pennsylvania, but in Iowa we find Casey’s, in Massachusetts Cumberland Farms, and hundreds of other names specific to a state or region. I am intrigued by the rapid growth of convenience stores, which, from my early research, seem to retain a local flavor for such a widespread national phenomenon.

PROCEDURE
Through my library research, I will examine the burgeoning of convenience stores by exploring the answers to questions such as the following:

—How does the rapid growth of convenience stores reflect demographic trends?
—What determines the location of convenience stores? (macro-geography?)
—How have the unrelated markets of food retail and gasoline sales evolved into a common store?

I also plan to interview several key executives at Uni-Mart, including Charles R. Markham, who is the executive vice-president.

REFERENCESDirectory of Supermarkets, Grocery, and Convenience Store Chains. CGS, 1990. This is a comprehensive guide to all major and many minor stores and their data (number of stores, size, brief history, top personnel). It also includes maps that illustrate regional concentrations of stores, and provides an overview of the industry today.

Curtis, C.E. "Mobil Wants To Be Your Milkman." Forbes. February 13, 1984, pp. 44-45. This article provides a concise but informative discussion of the combining of the food retail and gas industries.

Annotated Bibliographies

Many professors ask you to write annotated bibliographies—bibliographic information about your primary sources and a short description of each—as preparation for writing a paper. Often, these bibliographies are no more than a page or two in length, but they are important because they force you to get your teeth into the source material and they give your professor the opportunity to comment on your use of sources and suggest some that you may have overlooked.

Style for Annotated Bibliographies

When you write an annotated bibliography for a course or in preparation for a thesis advisor, consider that the professionalism of the product is a direct reflection of the quality of the paper that will result. Therefore, be stylistically conscientious, following these tips:

Begin by listing complete bibliographic information (author, year, source name, publisher, etc.) just as you would on the References page at the end of a paper.

Provide a sentence or two describing the contents of the source.

Summarize the various relevant topic areas that the source discusses.

Avoid vague phrasing and empty sentences. Weed out any generic sentences such as "This source is very useful because it has tons of really good information."

Use present tense and future tense verbs to facilitate the immediacy of the information and the actual future use of sources.

Discuss the exact way that you will use the source (e.g., for background information, data, graphics, as a bibliographic tool).

Carefully judge the value of the source, considering, for example, its level of detail, bias, or the timeliness of its data.

Note if the source’s text or bibliography will lead you to other sources.

Comment on anything that you find especially noteworthy about a source—is it controversial? definitive? political? new?

Format the annotated bibliography so that each description is clearly associated with the proper source.

Sample Annotated Bibliography

An excellent annotated bibliography by a geography student follows. Note how he takes advantage of all of the stylistic advice offered on the previous page, and how the paper’s sections begin to take shape even in the source descriptions. Note also that the writer's tone is upbeat and informed. We get a strong sense that the writer cares about the topic and will make it interesting to read about.

SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jordan offers an in-depth look at the hows and whys of Texas graveyards. He divides vernacular burial sites into three categories: Mexican, German, and "Southern folk cemeteries." His physical descriptions of cemetery layout, inscriptions, grave markers, and the like are very detailed.

Meyer’s book is a compilation of works concerning such topics as regional epitaphs, origins of Southern cemeteries, the Afro-American section of a Rhode Island burial ground, and the use of bronze in memorials.

3) Sloane, David Charles (1991). The Last Great Necessity, Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sloane’s work will serve as my primary source of information. He has written a history of American cemeteries in a cultural context concentrating on significant trends in their development. Sloane’s "Notes" section will allow for easy access to other sources.

Zelinsky’s article is an intriguing analysis of the spatial patterns of American cemeteries. He calculates and maps the number of cemeteries by county across the country. He then seeks answers as to why there is such a fluctuation in the number per square mile from one place to the next. Zelinsky’s bibliography led me to Sloane’s work.

Descriptive Abstracts

A descriptive abstract—a summary of someone else’s paper or book—is often required by professors to give you practice in summarizing and responding to sources. Writing a descriptive abstract can be especially trying if you feel as though you are reading material over your head; however, if you understand the goals of a descriptive abstract correctly you can read and write in such a way that the author’s ideas are simplified while being represented fairly.

Style for Descriptive Abstracts

In many courses, a professor will set forth specific guidelines for both form and content of a descriptive abstract. In the absence of such guidelines or to supplement them, follow this advice:

Include a title and the word "Abstract" as a heading. Include basic bibliographic information about the source after the title (author’s name, title of work, etc.).

Frequently, a list of key words that will be used appears just underneath the title of the abstract. Consider listing your key words in this way.

Many professors will expect you to limit a descriptive abstract to a single page, so be certain to write with efficiency in mind—no filler.

Begin the abstract by providing some condensed background information and a statement of overview or purpose, much like the kind of material an author provides in an introduction and a thesis statement.

Decide on topics by selecting key information from your source. Use the chapter headings, section headings, conclusions, topic sentences, and key terms from your source to determine the topics.

Point out relationships among topics, especially via transition words.

Consider working from an outline to organize and write the abstract.

Use paragraphing generously to discuss different facets of the topic; do not fear short paragraphs.

Consider techniques such as enumeration or bulleting of key points for emphasis. However, unless the document becomes very long, you typically do not use section headings in an abstract.

Use present tense verbs generously, both to describe ideas or events and to present the author’s goals.

Use the author’s name or the names of other key authors, especially those who represent particular theories, directly in the text. However, you typically do not cite sources in the abstract itself; the reader understands that all of the ideas in a descriptive abstract come from a particular source unless you note otherwise.

Do not skimp on the conclusion; assert the source’s "bottom line" information, even if that means repeating some of the author’s words.

Some professors will expect you or allow you to close the descriptive abstract with your own views on the subject or on the author’s treatment of the subject. Explore this option as concretely you can.

Do not use the abstract as a vehicle of apology for ideas you do not understand; stick to those key ideas that you can represent well.

Sample Descriptive Abstract

The sample abstract that follows is a solid model written for a class in mineral policy analysis. Given the pre-determined rhetorical context, no time is wasted, and paragraphs are kept both short and detailed. Note that, in accordance with her professor’s guidelines, the writer gives her particular views on the author’s treatment of the subject at the end of her descriptive abstract. She gives a full paragraph to her commentary, even noting how the author might have calculated costs differently to achieve a different outcome. Such detail and commentary show us that the writer both understands her material and can think effectively about it.

In February 1992, President Bush presented the National Energy Strategy (NES), which is based upon the ideals of a free market. Included in the NES are policies that remove restrictions on oil production and restrictions on the construction of nuclear power. This paper attempts to quantify the costs associated with spending on oil imports as related to national security and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

Energy security is measured by the size of U.S. imports because the Middle East holds the majority of reserves and oil reserves are being depleted. The consequence of this is that oil prices can be manipulated to harm the U.S. and its allies. Oil price shocks or supply disruptions instigated by OPEC cause recessions by lowering output, raising prices, and lowering real wages. These effects are determined by applying the Granger causality tests.

A benefit of a market-driven price determination system is that prices rise as depletable resources fall, implying increased scarcity. This rise in price gives an incentive to produce substitutes as well as reduce consumption of oil.

There is a large divergence between the social cost of energy and the price because of environmental externalities associated with conventional energy sources. The philosophy of the administration is to rely on market prices to determine 20% of the economy’s investment. However, misplaced investments based on such a policy have implications for many years. Hall concludes that the policies reflected in the NES will result in gross economic inefficiency.

I agree with Hall’s conclusion that misplaced investment in such a large part of our economy is dangerous. I believe that there should be more of an analysis concerning how varying oil prices can affect the costs associated with oil import spending. This would show how vulnerable oil import spending is relative to price changes. Although Hall mentions the opportunity cost of interest that could have been earned had the amount spent been invested, he does not attempt to quantify what that amount is. I would attempt to calculate these costs using various interest rates. I also feel that he should calculate the inventory holding cost, and I am also curious to know what the cost of oil deterioration is and if there are transportation costs involved. These additional costs could be very significant in adding to the costs that Hall has already predicted.

Progress Reports

Progress reports are common and critical documents in science and engineering, typically when you are part of a research team reporting to a funding agency about your progress on work you are doing for that agency. The basic point of a progress report is to summarize the status, progress, and likely future for a particular project. In a progress report you are often expected to commit to an exact schedule for the project completion, discuss the status of the materials being used and account for the money spent, and summarize concretely both the current findings and the predicted results. The professionalism of the progress report is often vital to the future of the project.

In classes and projects involving writing, progress reports are used as a way for you to summarize your progress to your teacher or advisor, who will typically give feedback on whether he or she is satisfied with your progress. These reports could feel like a mere formality or a waste of time to you, but they are an excellent opportunity to articulate some of the key sentences of your final report and even pose questions in writing to your audience. The rules for writing progress reports are a lot more flexible in a classroom or lab than they are on the job, with a lot less at stake, so you should take full advantage of the opportunity for practice.

Self-Study

For more ideas on writing progress reports, I recommend that you visit:

Style for Progress Reports

The following stylistic advice can be applied to most progress reports you write:

Include a working title and the words "Progress Report" at the top of the page.

Use section headings in the report to simplify both the writing and reading process.

Open the report with a "Scope and Purpose" section, where you give a condensed version of your future report’s introduction and objective.

Always include a section entitled, for example, "Progress," which summarizes the work’s pace and progress and explains any snafus, dilemmas, or setbacks.

Always include a section entitled, for example, "Remaining Work," which honestly assesses the work that must still be completed. Think right on the page in this section, posing questions, speculating meaningfully, exploring your options.

Always include a section that projects the expected results. Commit to a schedule for obtaining those results if possible.

If necessary, include a section in which you directly solicit advice from your teacher or advisor. Be forthright and professional about the nature of the advice you need.

Keep your paragraphs short and focused—just a few paragraphs per section, typically.

Your tone can often be straightforward and familiar—therefore, as a rule, you can use "I" and "you" freely—but do not lapse into informality.

Sample Progress Report

The following short progress report, written by a student in geology, provides an excellent example of how concrete and affirmative a progress report can be. Note the specificity even in the title, and how sections such as "Remaining Questions" and "Expected Results" demonstrate that the writer, even though he is two months away from the completion of his thesis, is thinking about the work in a professional manner.

Progress Report

"Stratigraphic Architecture of Deep-Ramp Carbonates: Implications for Deposition
of Volcanic Ashes, Salona and Coburn Formations, Central Pennsylvania"
by John Lerner

SCOPE AND PURPOSE

The Late Middle Ordovician-age Salona and Coburn formations of central Pennsylvania show cyclic patterns on a scale of tens of meters. Little research has been done on sequence stratigraphy of deep-water mixed carbonate/siliciclastic systems, and a depositional model for this environment is necessary to understand the timing and processes of deposition. The stratigraphic position of the bentonites at the base of the larger cycles is significant because it indicates that they accumulated during a time of non-deposition in a deep water environment.

PROGRESS

To date, I have described five lithofacies present in the Salona and Coburn formations. Two lithofacies are interpreted as storm deposits and make up the limestone component of the thinly-bedded couplets. Some trends were observed in the raw data; however, because of the "noisy" nature of the data, a plot of the five-point moving average of bed thickness was created to define the cycles better.

ADDITIONAL WORK

Two key tasks are to be completed in the coming weeks. With the results of these tests and the field observations, I will create a model for deposition of a deep-ramp mixed carbonate/siliciclastic system in a foreland basin environment. The model will include depositional processes, stratigraphic architecture, and tectonic setting.

REMAINING QUESTIONS

Questions remain regarding the depositional processes responsible for the featureless micrite at the base of the Salona Formation. . . . How rapid was the transition? What record (if any?) remains of the transition? Were bentonites not deposited, or were they selectively removed at certain locations by erosive storm processes?

EXPECTED RESULTS

I expect to find that the large-scale cycles represent parasequences. Flooding surfaces are marked by bentonites and shales, with bentonites removed in some locations. If the cycles are true parasequences, the implication is that eustatic sea level changes and not tectonic influences controlled the depositional changes over the interval.

Memos

In many courses, you are asked to submit your writing in memo form, and in some cases your assignments are given to you as memos. This not only gives you practice in writing a professional document, it invites you to see your writing as purposeful and aimed at a particular audience. A detailed instructional memo about memo writing—a "metamemo," if you will—follows.

Memo

This memo provides you with tips on writing memos for your classes, with special attention to a memo’s audience, format, organization, content, tone, and style. Because my advice comes in the form of a memo, you can use this document as a model for writing your own memos.

The Audience for a Memo
It is useful to begin by considering that a memo is essentially a one-on-one communication between writer and reader. Although a memo may be written to a group of people or with various audiences in mind, usually it is a highly goal-oriented communication between two people who need to share information. When you write a memo to a professor in the classroom setting, you are much like the employee who has been assigned to investigate a problem and report back to a supervisor. Therefore, you are expected to provide concrete information, even information that the supervisor might already know, in a form that clarifies ideas and puts them into context. Finally, a memo enjoys a broader context than an essay; hence, you might refer to other related memos as you write, or you might respond to specific requests made by the audience in your text, in effect, carrying on a professional conversation.

Typical Memo Format
The overall format of a memo can be broken down into the heading, the body, and the closing notations. What follows is a brief description of each component.

The Heading
The heading has two parts: part one includes two centered lines at the top of page 1, identifying the name of the company or institution on the first line, with the word "memorandum" on the second line; part two includes the "DATE," "TO," "FROM," and "SUBJECT" lines at the left margin, filled in appropriately.

The Body
The body of the memo follows the Introduction, and it is usually presented in single-spaced paragraphs with a line skipped between each paragraph. The first lines of new paragraphs can appear at the left margin or they can be indented five spaces.

The Closing Notations
The closing notations, used to identify such things as attachments, appear at the left margin two lines below the text of the final paragraph. By simply typing the word "Attachment" as a closing notation, you automatically refer the reader to any attachment, such as a map, a set of calculations, spreadsheets, or a References page.

How Memos are Organized
The general organization of a memo mirrors that of an essay: an introduction, followed by body paragraphs, followed by a conclusion. However, the first paragraph of a memo is typically used as a forecasting device. Note how the opening paragraph of this memo defines the memo’s function and reflects its organization. It is sensible to open memos for your classes in the same way, first directly stating the memo’s purpose, then setting forth the organization and noting how the memo can be used.

Organization in the body of a memo is typically characterized by the use of section headings and short paragraphs. Paragraphs should not be too bulky—five or six per page is usually ideal. On the sentence level, you should take full advantage of the same organizational tools that you employ when you write an essay: meaningful topic sentences; carefully selected transition words; focused section headings; indented blocks of cited text; a bulleted series of examples; powerful punctuation marks such as the colon, semicolon, and dash.

Selection and Citation of Content
A memo’s content, of course, is guided by the assignment and the research required. It is important to remember as you present the content that selectivity and relevance matter greatly. Your job is to select and present the most pertinent, most current information available to you. Do not hesitate, of course, to let your memo’s content be heavily informed by your research, but also provide your own interpretation and organization of this research.

As in any essay, you must document the sources of your information so that your reader could find the original source of the information if desired. If your memo uses sources, provide the bibliographic information related to your sources on a References page as an attachment at the end of the memo—just as I have in this memo.

A Memo’s Tone and Style
Memos for your classes require a highly informative and straightforward tone, but allow for a slightly informal style compared to essays. As in this memo, "I" and "you" are handy because they provide a straightforward way of communicating, but you must be careful not to overuse these terms. Stylish prose is key to good memo writing, and you should not hesitate to use active, interpretive adverbs and verbs and concrete, carefully chosen adjectives and nouns.

A memo need not be written in a dry, dull fashion; rather, it should emulate the same stylistic standards that good prose has always embraced. These standards are summed up neatly in the popular style guide, The Elements Of Style, as follows:

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary
sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines
and a machine no unnecessary parts (Strunk and White 1979).

As this quote suggests, good prose can achieve elegance by its clarity, efficiency, and sense of purpose.

Conclusion
The conclusion of a memo should not simply provide a summary of the memo’s entire contents, but it should be a true conclusion—that is, an articulated conviction arrived at on the basis of the evidence presented. The closing paragraph is the place to spell out the bottom line to the reader. Therefore, I close with my bottom line about writing memos for your classes:

Study and use standard memo format to present your text;

Use internal organizational tools such as section headings, topic sentences, transition words, and powerful punctuation marks to enhance the flow of ideas;

Write with the same clarity, grace, and efficiency expected of you in any essay.

Essays and Term Papers

When you are first faced with the task of writing a long essay or term paper it can be intimidating, but you make your job and the reader’s job much easier by following some basic rules of thumb. Of course, if your professors offer you any specific guidelines about writing be sure to follow those first. Otherwise, incorporate the advice that follows into your papers wherever appropriate.

Self-Study

Here are some excellent websites for further advice about writing term papers:

Mechanics

Of course, papers should always be typed, double-spaced on 8-1/2 x 11 paper on one side of the page only, and letter-quality print or better is always expected. Often you are expected to supply a cover sheet giving the date, your name, the title of the paper, the class, and the professor’s name. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively throughout the text, and if there are a good number of them, then separate lists of tables and figures at the beginning of the paper may be expected. Tables and figures should always have descriptive captions, and if they come directly from sources, the sources must be specifically credited in the captions with the same citation style that you use throughout the paper.

Title

A paper’s title should be succinct and definitive, individual and informational. Clearly, the title "An Overview of the Hydraulic Fracturing of Methane-Bearing Coal Formations" is more complete, satisfying, and informative than "Hydraulic Fracturing." The title is important because it announces the paper’s specific content and typically serves as a pathway to the paper’s thesis.

Introduction

Your introduction is your opportunity to be at your most individual. You should get your reader’s attention immediately by announcing the paper’s subject or by launching into a relevant scenario or narrative that informs or illustrates your overall argument. A paper illustrating the costly effects of poor mine design, for instance, might open with the scenario of how a poorly designed pillar at a salt mine in Louisiana once collapsed, fracturing the surface above and draining an entire lake into the mine. A paper on the supply and demand of nickel might begin by straightforwardly announcing that the paper will explain the uses of nickel, detail its market structure, and use data to forecast the future supply and demand of the metal.

In brief, a paper’s introduction should define and limit the paper’s scope and purpose, indicate some sense of organization, and, whenever possible, suggest an overall argument. Another important principle in technical writing is that the introduction should be problem-focused, giving the reader enough background so that the paper’s importance and relationship to key ideas are clear. A rule of thumb about the introduction’s length: about 5-10% of the entire paper.

As examples of how creative an introduction can be, here are the opening lines from a geography paper and a paper on optics, both of which use narrative technique to arouse our interest. Note how the first excerpt uses an "I" narrator comfortably while the second excerpt does not use "I" even though the writer is clearly reflective about the subject matter. The first excerpt is from a paper on the generic nature of America’s highway exit ramp services; the second is from a paper on shape constancy.

The observation struck me slowly, a growing sense of déjà vu. I was driving the endless miles of Interstate 70 crossing Kansas when I began to notice that the exits all looked the same. . . .

Our eyes often receive pictures of the world that are contrary to physical reality. A pencil in a glass of water miraculously bends; railroad tracks converge in the distance. . . .

Thesis Statement / Objective

Most papers have outright thesis statements or objectives. Normally you will not devote a separate section of the paper to this; in fact, often the thesis or objective is conveniently located either right at the beginning or right at the end of the Introduction. A good thesis statement fits only the paper in which it appears. Thesis statements usually forecast the paper’s content, present the paper’s fundamental hypothesis, or even suggest that the paper is an argument for a particular way of thinking about a topic. Avoid the purely mechanical act of writing statements like "The first topic covered in this paper is x. The second topic covered is y. The third topic is . . ." Instead, concretely announce the most important elements of your topic and suggest your fundamental approach—even point us toward the paper’s conclusion if you can.

Here are two carefully focused and thoughtfully worded thesis statements, both of which appeared at the ends of introductory paragraphs:

This paper reviews the problem of Pennsylvania’s dwindling landfill space, evaluates the success of recycling as a solution to this problem, and challenges the assumption that Pennsylvania will run out of landfill space by the year 2020.

As this paper will show, the fundamental problem behind the Arab-Israeli conflict is the lack of a workable solution to the third stage of partition, which greatly hinders the current negotiations for peace.

Self-Study

From the flat state of Indiana, here are two pages on how to write sound thesis statements:

Body Paragraphs / Section Headings

Never simply label the middle bulk of the paper as "Body" and then lump a bunch of information into one big section. Instead, organize the body of your paper into sections by using an overarching principle that supports your thesis, even if that simply means presenting four different methods for solving some problem one method at a time. Normally you are allowed and encouraged to use section headings to help both yourself and the reader follow the flow of the paper. Always word your section headings clearly, and do not stray from the subject that you have identified within a section.

As examples, I offer two sets of section headings taken from essays. The first is from Dr. Craig Bohren’s "Understanding Colors in Nature" (1), which appeared in a 1990 edition of Earth & Mineral Sciences; the second is from a student’s paper on the supply and demand of asbestos.

Section Headings From "Understanding Colors In Nature"

Color By Scattering: The Role of Particle Size

Color By Scattering: The Positions of Source and Observer

The Blue Sky: The Role of Multiple Scattering

Color By Absorption in Multiple-Scattering Media

Color by Absorption: Microscopic Mechanisms are Sometimes Elusive

Section Headings From "Asbestos: Supply and Demand"

Industry Structure

The Mining and Properties of Asbestos

World Resources and Reserves

Byproducts and Co-products

Economic Factors and Supply and Demand Problems

Uses of and Substitutes for Asbestos

The Issue of Health on Supply and Demand

Just by considering the section headings in the above examples, we can begin to see the fundamental structures and directions of the essays, because both sets of headings break the paper topic into its natural parts and suggest some sort of a movement forward through a topic. Note how these headings—as all section headings should—tell us the story of the paper and are worded just as carefully as any title should be.

Most importantly, then, you must use your section headings in the same way that you use topic sentences or thesis statements: to control, limit, and organize your thinking for your reader’s sake.

Conclusion

Most papers use "Conclusion" as a heading for the final section of the text, although there are times when headings such as "Future Trends" will serve equally well for a paper’s closing section. When you are stuck for a conclusion, look back at your introduction; see if you can freshly reemphasize your objectives by outlining how they were met, or even revisit an opening scenario from the introduction in a new light to illustrate how the paper has brought about change. Your conclusion should not be a summary of the paper or a simple tacked-on ending, but a significant and logical realization of the paper’s goals.

Beware of the temptation to open your final paragraph with "In conclusion," or "In summary," and then summarize the paper. Instead, let your entire conclusion stand as a graceful termination of an argument. As you write your conclusion, concentrate on presenting the bottom line, and think of the word’s definition: a conclusion is an articulated conviction arrived at on the basis of the evidence you have presented.

What follows is an excerpt from a conclusion to a paper entitled "Exercise in the Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis in Women." Note how the conclusion reflects directly on the paper’s hypothesis and spells out the bottom line, gracefully bringing closure to the paper’s argument:

The majority of evidence presented in this paper supports the hypothesis that exercise positively affects bone mineral density in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Significantly, exercise has been shown to increase bone mineral density in premenopausal women even after the teenage years, and it helps preserve the bone mass achieved in the following decades. There is also evidence that exercise adds a modest, yet significant amount of bone mass to the postmenopausal skeleton. As these findings demonstrate, women of all ages can benefit by regular weight-bearing exercise, an increased intake of calcium-rich foods, and—for postmenopausal women—the maintenance of adequate estrogen levels. For all women, it is never too late to prevent osteoporosis or lessen its severity by making appropriate lifestyle choices.

References

Any sources cited must be correctly listed on a References page using the Author-Year or Number system (see Chapter 5[22] of this handbook).

Technical Reports

Particularly for those of you in engineering fields, you might find the reading of journal articles none too stimulating (other than the occasional exciting references to hot presses, cool gels, quickened pulses, or body melds). Nevertheless, at their best, the journal articles you must read are certainly important and carefully crafted. The rigid-seeming format and objective style of scientific reports lend them a universal utility so that readers from various disciplines can readily access and use the complex information. Your professors will confirm that busy scientists (who can actually sometimes be characterized as "reader-hostile") rarely read these reports linearly—many readers cut right to "Results and Discussion" or look over the tables and figures before reading anything, then jump around to those bits of the report that are most relevant to their particular needs. Often, their goals are to rapidly exclude information they do not want (or do not trust).

In light of the above realities, it is especially important for you to write reports in a fashion acceptable to a journal in your field. As you prepare technical reports for your classes, you have built-in slots in which to put your information, and you plug in to a tried and proven recipe that has evolved over many years. Understanding this recipe and conforming to it will help you to organize your complex information as well as meet your reader’s specific and sophisticated needs.

Mechanics

Of course, reports should always be typed, double-spaced on 8-1/2 x 11 paper on one side of the page only, and letter-quality print or better is expected. Unless you are instructed otherwise, it is usually standard to include a cover sheet giving the date, your name, the title of the report, the course, and the professor’s name. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively throughout the text, and, in a thesis or long report, separate lists of tables and figures are normally included at the beginning. Tables and figures should always have descriptive captions, and if they come directly from sources then the sources must be properly credited in the captions. Never present tables and figures without some useful interpretation of them in the text.

Title

It is always necessary to have a highly concrete title consisting only of words that contribute directly to the report subject. Be sure that the title contains no filler and includes few abbreviations or acronyms, yet also be certain that it is complete. "Sol Gel Method" is clearly incomplete compared to "The Synthesis of NZP by the Sol Gel Method." Of course, it is possible to overdo specificity as well: "The Role of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells in the Important Scientific Search For Energy Alternatives as Necessitated by the Recent Middle East Crisis and America’s Energy Consumption" is painfully excessive and should be reduced to its essential elements.

Abstract

Most reports require an abstract—a condensed summary of the report’s contents. In a journal article, more people will read the abstract than any other part of the paper, so its succinctness and accuracy are vital. The abstract is always self-contained, and is sometimes presented as a separate page. The best abstracts do these things, usually in this order:

summarize the specific nature of the investigation;

identify the rationale behind the investigation;

present the important findings and most significant overall data;

briefly interpret the pertinent findings.

By necessity, abstracts are often written last, and a good rule of thumb is that the abstract is less than 5 percent of the paper’s total length. In a thesis, an abstract should fit on one page if possible. Passive voice and past tense verbs are usually appropriate for the purposes of summary, although many journals now print abstracts in the present tense with active voice.

What follows is a short excerpt from the opening of an abstract. Note how the first sentence summarizes the nature of the investigation, while the second identifies the rationale:

This study determines the locus of rifting at the southern end of the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift System within northern Tanzania. Here, the Eastern Branch diverges into a 300-km-wide area of block faulting, and consequently it is uncertain whether the rifting extends seawards across the Tanzania continental shelf or directly southwards into central Tanzania. In this study, the locus of rifting is investigated by . . .

Introduction

The introduction should offer immediate context for the reader by establishing why the problem being studied is important and by describing the nature and scope of the problem. You should describe your specific approach to the problem and establish how your investigative work meshes with the needs of the field or with other work that has been done. The so called "funnel system" of organization—moving from a broad approach to a gradually narrowed scope—is highly recommended here. Present tense is also highly favored, especially as you present accepted scientific truths and the objectives of the report. Introductions range from one to several pages in length, and must always include a clearly worded account of the report’s objective, usually at the end of the introduction (Some writers even include a short separate subsection labeled "Objective"). Most journals allow "we" or "our" to be used in the introduction, especially as you outline your objectives or summarize the common goals of researchers.

Here is an ideal opening sentence from a report introduction. Note how it launches the reader directly into the science:

Literature Review

When articles appear in journals, the most noteworthy literature will usually be reviewed only briefly in the introduction or as it becomes relevant. In technical reports and theses for your classes, however, an entire section of your paper may well be devoted to a literature review. Literature reviews range from exhaustive searches to summaries of only the most germane articles, but the fundamental objective is always the same: to establish the history of the problem being investigated by summarizing the WHAT, HOW, and WHY of the work that has already been done. Writing a literature review requires you to establish relationships among findings from other researchers and to condense many pages of published material into shorter segments. Therefore, your ability to assimilate material and, in effect, tell your own story, becomes critical.

Stylistically, literature reviews are often written in the past tense, but many authors favor the present tense when the research being summarized was completed recently. Passive voice may seem tempting to use, but active voice will serve you well here, because you can smoothly place the names of authors into the subject slot of the sentence:

Yoldas and Lloyd (1999) propose a chemical polymerization technique for the preparation of NASICON gels.

Experimental / Methods / Procedures

Any of the above titles will usually do for this section. The goal is to summarize the WHAT, HOW, and WHY behind your specific experiment, with particular emphasis on the WHAT and HOW so that other researchers can repeat your procedures if they so desire. As necessary, this section includes a description of the relevant apparatus and materials used, and photographs and diagrams could be used, sparingly, to help clarify the procedures.

Stylistically, passive voice and past tense verbs are essential in this section, but be sure that your sentences are written efficiently and contain simple subjects and verbs when possible. The basic form of directly saying "what was done; why it was done that way" should be used over and over in the "Experimental" section.

Here is an ideal sentence from the "Experimental" section of an engineering report:

After the dispersion thickened it was poured into molds coated with Vaseline to prevent sticking.

Finally, subsections, perhaps numbered, are often used to aid in the organization of the material. For example:

Results

For most readers, this is the most important section of the report—your readers must easily find your results in order to interpret them. Here you straightforwardly present the results of your experiment, usually with minimal discussion. Naturally, the use of tables, graphs, and figures is especially enlightening here, as are explanations of how data were derived:

The conductivities of the top and bottom values for each measurement were averaged and the results are listed in Table 3.

Take care not to include your experimental methods here—that is the job of the previous section.

Discussion

Often this section is combined with "Results" into one "Results and Discussion" section; this allows you to interpret your results as you summarize them. Logical deductions must be made, errors of or ambiguities in the data should be discussed, and even simple causal relationships must be confirmed. It is important here not to rely on a table or figure to do the work for you—you must outrightly and concisely interpret. Beware of making sweeping generalizations or unfounded statements. Again, passive voice may seem tempting here, but active voice can be highly valuable, especially as you make a logical assertion:

Obviously, the formation of the protective layer prevented rapid oxidation.

As a rule, use past tense to summarize your actual results; use present tense to present established facts or present your interpretations ("The helium sintering data show . . .").

Finally, consider referring back to the key literature of your introduction or literature review in this section. Enlighten your readers (and perhaps even elevate your work) by discussing your results in relation to the published results of others.

Conclusions

In "Discussion" you supplied your reasoning; now you present the exact conclusions you have arrived at as they relate to your experimental objectives. Conclusions may be listed and numbered, and it should be made clear how they contribute to the understanding of the overall problem. In a sense, you are going back to the big picture provided by your introduction now, incorporating your conclusions into that picture, even suggesting where more work is needed. This section may be short—often about the same length as the abstract.

The following is an excerpt from the "Conclusions" section of a report:

These results confirm the hypothesis posed in the Introduction: that the shock sensitivity of this explosive is probably not due to the weakening of the phenyl ring by the substituents. It is possible, however, that mechanical properties such as the coefficient of friction, uniaxial yield stress, and hardness greatly influence the explosive’s shock sensitivity. Further work is needed in this area to determine . . .

Acknowledgments

If appropriate, briefly recognize any individual or institution that contributed directly to the completion of the research through financial support, technical assistance, or critique. In a thesis, this section may appear just before the introduction.

References

List cited sources on a References page using the Author–Year or Number system (see Chapter 5[22][22]of this handbook).

Appendices

If necessary, use an "Appendices" section to present supplementary material that was not included in the main body of the report because it would have detracted from the efficient or logical presentation of the text, usually either by sheer bulk or level of relevance. A typical appendix would be a list of organizations relevant to the material of the report, or a list of symbols used in the text, or the derivation of an equation that was used in the text but could not be referenced because it did not originally appear in a standard text. As with figures and tables, appendices should be numbered or lettered in sequence; i.e., "Appendix A, Appendix B," and so on.

Internship and Co-op Reports

Typically, you are required to write a report about your work at the completion of an internship or co-op. Although an internship or co-op might not be linked directly to a class, per se, the act of writing the report—which is often achieved in the final weeks of the experience or in the semester following the work—is certainly a writing-intensive experience. The document provides a simple means for you to report to your faculty supervisor on both the content and value of your work assignment, and, more importantly, it gives you a chance to reflect on the work you have done in both a personal and professional manner. You should think of your report, therefore, as both a formal academic assignment and as a personal opportunity to use and enhance your skills as a communicator. Just as successful people thrive by blending their formal education and experience with critical self-assessment, you can use your report to review what you have learned, detail what you have accomplished, and gauge your personal growth. Also, especially if you produce a professional product, you might offer your report as a writing sample to a potential employer.

Frequently, you will be given guidelines for writing your report from a faculty supervisor, and it is critical that you follow these guidelines to the letter. It is also important, though, that you treat these guidelines as starting points rather than ending ones. For instance, if you are posed with three questions to consider in a particular section of your report, your responses to these questions should be thoughtful and expansive rather than just simple one-sentence answers. Further, you should see these questions as starting points that will lead you to other related questions of your own design. The bottom line is this: Any report guidelines you are given should be viewed as a substantive framework that awaits your interpretation and elaboration, not as a simple Q-and-A or fill-in-the-blank exercise.

One important note about your report: Before being turned in to your faculty supervisor, it should first be reviewed by your employer. Your employer’s role here is proprietary; i.e., the employer should be considered the "owner" of the report content. You must be certain that your employer will allow the content of your report to become public, and you should also view the employer’s review of your report as standard practice—just as a project manager reviews and endorses the written work of his or her team members.

As a complement to whatever guidelines you are given, the following sections will aid you in generating detail, making your report stylish, and treating it as a personal and professional product. Keep in mind that internship and co-op reports are typically built around specific majors or programs. Therefore, advice you find on the web for one program might not be correct for another, even within the same school. Always check within your program or department office to ensure you are following the appropriate, most up-to-date guidelines.

Report Content and Style

The specifics of your report content will vary based on the guidelines provided by your faculty supervisor. However, all faculty supervisors will be interested in reading about three main subjects:

Your employer;

Your duties;

Your evaluation of the work experience.

Your Employer

You should describe the employer you worked for in thorough detail. As you do so, consider doing the following jobs, typically devoting at least one paragraph to each:

Introduce the employer’s connection to you by providing an overview of your position, including such details as where you worked, for how long, and how the position fit into your education.

Describe the nature of the position you held in relation to the employer—what is the position’s value to the company? Why does the company hire interns? Is the internship program new or long-standing?

When appropriate, quote key company literature—e.g., a brochure, a mission statement, a web page—to summarize the company’s values and culture.

Give an overview of the employing organization’s size, structure, and commitment to internship/co-op positions. Use the company literature or web page directly to help you generate detail, but avoid simple cut-and-paste composing—assimilate the material.

Detail how the position you held fit into the overall company organization.

Outline some of the employer’s key goals and challenges, highlighting those problems or projects with which you were specifically charged.

Your Duties

In describing your work duties, outline your specific responsibilities and tie them into any larger projects with which you were involved. Detailed accounts should be given of such issues as the following:

Duties you took on or were assigned beyond the standard job description.

Activities in coordination with project teams or co-workers.

Specific technical functions of your position.

The academic background necessary for any project you worked on.

The goals of any project you were involved in.

Key data, equations, or software that you generated or used.

Names and functions of machinery or instruments that you operated.

Analysis and application of data to your particular project.

Documents, reports, or presentations that you were required to complete.

Your Evaluation of the Work Experience

An evaluation of your internship or co-op is important not just for your faculty supervisor, but for your academic department, your peers, and for you personally. As a way to evaluate your experience, elaborate on areas such as the following:

The assessment others made of your work, especially if you were given a written evaluation.

Contributions that the work experience made to your career development, goals, and growth.

Contributions of the work experience to your selection of future coursework, either because you foresaw new needs due to the work or because a co-worker made recommendations.

Assessment of which courses you completed that were the most or the least applicable to your internship/co-op. Note specific courses and principles studied in these courses.

Whether the internship/co-op made good use of your technical background.

Your level of personal satisfaction with the internship/co-op and whether or not you would recommend it to others.

Your assessment of how the internship/co-op could be improved for others.

Stylistic Benchmarks

No one expects you to emulate Shakespeare as you write your report (in fact, you had better not do so—"Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune . . ."); instead, your readers will expect your information to be clear and your ideas to be fluid. Therefore, as you compose your report, employ the following stylistic benchmarks:

Pay special attention to subject/verb agreement and verb tense, the two most common sentence-level problems in technical writing.

Favor short paragraphs over long ones. Short paragraphs tend to be focused; long ones tend to be cumbersome. Aim at four-six paragraphs per page.

Consciously build your paragraphs around topic sentences, even very simple sentences such as "My daily activities fell into three categories." Your readers will be thankful that you spelled your paragraph topics out clearly, and it will help keep you focused as well.

Selectively use transition words at the beginnings of pivotal sentences and paragraphs, remembering that transition words provide simple ways for you to guide the reader’s thinking. Opening a sentence with a word such as "Specifically" tells the reader that you are about to elaborate, while a transition such as "Clearly" implies writer contemplation.

Rely on active voice more than passive. Write "WBRE-TV employs three interns" rather than "Three interns are employed by WBRE-TV."

Take advantage of the most powerful punctuation marks—the semicolon, colon, and dash—to present material efficiently.

Use an honest, upbeat, sincere tone, especially in the conclusion of your report when you assess the internship or co-op’s value to you personally.

Global Mechanics

Of course, reports should always be typed, using double-spaced type, one side of the page only, on 8-1/2 x 11 paper. Use a point size of 10-12 and a highly readable font such as Times. Include page numbers on all pages after page 1. Use a laser printer to print off the final version of your report.

Just as in a professional paper, any tables and figures should be numbered consecutively throughout the text, and if many figures and tables appear then separate lists of them at the beginning of the report would be wise. Tables and figures should always have descriptive captions, and if they come directly from sources, the sources must be specifically credited in the captions with the same citation style that you use throughout the report. Use an appendix to attach any important related materials, but only if these materials are highly illuminating or were used directly to write the report.

Cover Page

Typically, you are expected to supply a cover page giving such details as the title of your report, the type of report, your name, your major, and the complete name, address, website, and phone number of the employing organization. It is important that your cover page be thoroughly detailed, but that you do not let the presentation of detail be overwhelming to look at. Organize and balance your information on the cover page with aesthetics in mind, favoring centered text and skipped lines between each separate detail. Also, consider using a table of contents page, especially if your report includes many section headings or is more than, say, eight pages in length.

Title

It is important that your report include an appropriate title. Again, look to any report guidelines you have been given for particulars, but remember that your title should be logical, informational, and professional, and should reflect the type of document that your report represents. Even a generic title such as "Internship Report" is more appropriate than an idiosyncratic, cutesy one such as "My Headache with Bayer Corporation."

Abstract

Since most professional reports require an abstract—a condensed summary of the report’s contents—it is logical for you to include one with your report as well. In published reports, more people will read the abstract than any other part of the paper, so its utility is critical. The abstract is always self-contained, and is normally presented as a separate page and in a single paragraph. By necessity, abstracts are often written last.

The best report abstracts do these things, typically in this order:

briefly summarize the purpose of the report;

summarize the specific nature of your work assignment;

provide basic information about the employer;

point the reader towards the conclusions of the report, which might in this case be your evaluation of the experience.

The style of abstracts is grounded in economy and information. Sentences should be kept short but detailed. You could use the pronoun "I" to refer to yourself in the abstract, but in general a straightforward and objective tone should be maintained.

A short excerpt from the opening of an internship report abstract follows:

This report outlines the duties of a summer intern at BMC Corporation in New Brunswick, NJ, and highly recommends the internship to other students. BMC Corporation includes over 50 manufacturing facilities in three states. I worked in the Peroxygen Chemicals Division . . .

Introduction

The content and length of the introduction vary based on your report guidelines, but as a rule introductions are meant to spark the reader’s interest by providing basic background relevant to the report. As you write your introduction, remember that you should create immediate context, ideally with individual style. You have a story to tell, and the introduction is your chance to get the reader interested in that story. Note in the following excerpt from a report introduction how the writer even begins with a creative, personal tone to invite the reader’s attention:

From the White House to the home of Steven Spielberg to elementary school classrooms, Lutron Electronics’ lighting controls manage the visual environment of millions of buildings all over the globe. Lutron’s products form one of the largest markets in the lighting industry throughout the world, ranging from a simple wall box dimmer to a complex computerized system controlling all the lights of a coliseum.

From May to August 2008, I worked at Lutron as a summer intern. My responsibilities included . .

Section Headings

In any report more than a few pages long, section headings are always a good idea. Just by considering the section headings in a report, the reader can determine the report’s organization and content. For the writer, thoroughly worded section headings help you to control, limit, and organize your thinking within each section.

To generate your section headings in the body of your report, you can begin by turning to any report guidelines with which you have been provided. For instance, if you are asked in your report guidelines to consider whether the position truly utilizes your technical background, you might create a section heading such as "Technical Background Necessary for Position." Compose section headings that have a clear relationship to one another and tell the story of the entire report.

The following section headings from a co-op report demonstrate both the specificity and the narrative nature of good section headings:

Introduction to My Co-op

Overview of Bayer Corporation

Overview of My New Martinsville Co-op Experience

Computer-Simulated Process Control: the Camile Tg Software Package

The Use of Mid-IR to Monitor Reaction Extent

Conclusion and Personal Evaluation of Bayer

Conclusion

The content of your conclusion might be made up entirely of your personal evaluation of the internship/co-op. However, it is also appropriate to give an overview of the report or to highlight something that you learned in writing the report. For instance, some students use the conclusion to review the key terminology that was used throughout the report and note how this key terminology now has practical applications for them. In short, you can use the conclusion to show how the work experience changed you.

Remember too that a conclusion can be a substantial portion of a report—perhaps several pages long. This makes it even more important for you to rely on specifics, not generalities. Avoid generic unsupported conclusions such as "The internship was a positive experience for me and it was very beneficial too." Instead, present evidence to prove your claims—provide examples, scenarios, lists, names, dates, emotions, labels, terminology. Do not skimp on detail.

As you write your conclusion, concentrate on presenting the bottom line, and think of the word’s definition: a conclusion is an articulated conviction arrived at on the basis of the evidence presented.

Acknowledgments

An acknowledgments section, normally on a separate page with the heading "Acknowledgments," could be included at the beginning or end of your report. The style for this section is often highly personal, and your job is to recognize briefly any individuals or organizations that contributed directly to the completion of your internship or co-op through financial support, technical assistance, critique, or personal commitment.

References

Any sources cited in your report must be correctly listed on a references page using a citation style that is standard in your field, such as the number system or author-year system (see Chapter 5[22] of this handbook). If your professor does not recommend a specific citation style, model yours on a journal from your discipline or, better yet, on the citation style recommended by your employer.